Page 9 of A Smile Full of Lies (Secrets of Stonewood #1)

Chapter

Seven

KNOX

Josh answered on the first ring, like he’d been holding his breath for my call.

“Hello?”

“It’s Knox.”

He paused and cleared his throat. When he spoke, his tone was stunned, “Mr. Knox. Wow. Uh… hi. I didn’t expect?—”

“I changed my mind.”

Silence stretched on the line between us, and I could practically see him scrambling to catch up in my mind’s eye.

“About the — uh — the haunted house?” he asked cautiously.

“You said I’d have full creative control, and the final say on everything. That offer still on the table?”

“Yes. Absolutely. Of course.”

“Then listen carefully.” My voice was low, measured. “You follow my lead. You use my vendors. You don’t speak to the press unless I approve it. And you don’t alter a single fucking detail without clearing it through me.”

Josh exhaled hard.

“Understood. No problem. Whatever you need.”

“We’ll run the event over the next two weekends. October only. Friday through Sunday. Keep the crowds tight. The tickets should be high-end… limited.”

“Two weekends,” he echoed. “Got it.”

“And I want the VIP list for every night sent directly to me before tickets go live.”

“Of course. We can do that. That’s — honestly, this is going to be a huge draw.”

“I also want one VIP ticket held back,” I added. “For Saturday night of the final weekend. It’s for someone… special.”

Josh perked up.

“A guest of yours?”

I didn’t answer, just let the silence stretch long enough to make him uncomfortable.

“Noted,” he said quickly. “Absolutely. I’ll mark it down. Reserved.”

I nodded once to myself. He had no idea who the ticket was for. Good.

Josh was still talking.

“…we could bring in some local artists for the blood effects, maybe do a rotating room concept for each weekend — different themes, different setups. Maybe even real security footage projected in one of the rooms, like a digital séance — super immersive. That kind of thing pulls serious emotional reactions.”

“Mmhmm,” I murmured, barely listening.

I had him on speaker. My focus was on the phone in my hand as I opened the app I never used in public. Not under my name.

It was built for short-form video content, mostly garbage, but the masked thirst traps always pulled views like clockwork. My account lived in shadows, carved out of hours spent editing voice distortion and night-vision overlays until I sounded less like a man and more like a myth.

Username: @NoxObscura

Followers: 271,000

Views: 14.6 million

I messaged Southern Scare Collective’s official account directly, keeping my message to them short and professional.

Nox Obscura

Interested in making my first in-person appearance at whatever this year’s SSC haunted house event is going to be. Happy to share clips on socials and boost promotion. Will need filming access at the location. That’s all I ask in exchange. Let me know.

I hit send and bit back a grin.

Josh kept going: “—we could even include a high-scare route and a low-scare route. Controlled lighting cues. Personalized fear profiles. I mean, we want it to feel real, but not like anyone’s actually in danger, you know?”

Before I could reply, I heard a muffled voice on his end, someone stepping into the room.

“Hey, Josh? You’re not gonna believe this: Nox Obscura just reached out to us. Like the Nox Obscura. He wants in on this year’s event.”

Josh gasped like he’d been blessed by God himself.

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope. He just DMed us, and wants permission to film on-site in exchange for his appearance.”

“This is insane,” Josh whispered. “What are the fucking odds?”

I bit the inside of my cheek, shaking with silent laughter.

“What’s a… Nocturn-something?” I asked, feigning confusion.

Josh sucked in a gasp, like my supposed ignorance offended him.

“Nox Obscura,” he said, his voice reverent. “He’s… huge. He’s a masked thirst trap content creator. The man is terrifyingly sexy. His fans are obsessed with him.”

“Sounds useful,” I said, keeping my tone neutral and businesslike. “If he’s legit, let him in.”

Josh was practically vibrating with excitement on the other end of the line.

“You don’t get it,” he said, breathless. “Nox Obscura’s the real fucking deal. He’s not like the cringey mask bros who just pant in front of a ring light. This guy’s primal. Ferocious. His stuff goes viral almost every time he posts.”

“Uh-huh,” I replied, staring at my screen.

“He does these hunting videos. Full tactical black, voice changer, pitch-black woods with night vision overlays. It’s intimate and terrifying… like if a serial killer wanted to fuck you instead of stab you.”

I smiled faintly.

“Charming.”

Josh laughed.

“It is! That’s the thing. It’s like… fear kink content. And the fanbase is rabid. Girls thirst in the comments constantly. They post duet reactions where they practically cream themselves. One woman said his voice made her ‘clench like a demon in church’. No lie.”

I muted him and opened a new private browsing window on my work desktop.

Josh’s voice droned on in the background, gushing about marketing synergy and brand awareness. Meanwhile, I logged in to the anonymous forum I’d been chatting with Ros on the night before.

Lucky for me, she was online.

I leaned forward, my heart kicking harder against my rib cage.

GraveyardGirl93… my girl.

I navigated to her profile and clicked the DM button so I could drop a private message directly in her inbox.

StrayDog777

I was thinking after our chat last night and wanted to ask you something. Have you ever explored MaskTok? Some people say the content there makes them feel safe and scared at the same time. I think you might like it.

I hit send, then waited.

Josh was still yammering excitedly about Nox Obscura and how that could help pull the kind of numbers they need to make the event profitable on such short notice.

He had no idea that the masked man he was raving about was the same man who had watched the aftermath of his family’s death at the hands of monsters in masks, and then slowly became obsessed with them.

One day, I was going to find the faceless bastards who murdered my family, and show them what a real monster in a mask could do.

Josh also had no clue I’d been secretly hoping for years that the girl next door would stumble across one of my thirst trap videos. I’d spent years hoping she’d see me and want to be caught.

Josh was still riding the high of the offer from Nox Obscura.

“I’m telling you, this is insane. Between the exclusivity, the location, and now the potential tie-in with Nox Obscura? This thing’s going to explode. I guarantee you if he posts about it, it’ll sell out within 72 hours of tickets going live.”

I forced a thoughtful hum.

“Does the masked thirst trap guy really have that many rabid fans?”

Josh chuckled.

“Yeah, he does. You have no idea what those fans are like. It’ll be great for ticket sales.”

“If he helps ticket sales,” I said dryly, “I’ll allow it.”

“You won’t regret this, I promise,” Josh vowed.

I already didn’t. It was the perfect way to give Ros a taste of what she thought she wanted and see how she actually responded to me making her fantasy come true.

I ended the call and tossed my phone onto the desk. The light outside had shifted, shining bright and sharp through my office window. It was mid-morning, the day after everything .

The night she confessed. The night I slipped into her house and stood beside her bed, hand twitching with the urge to touch her.

She didn’t know, she couldn’t. Not yet.

But she’d stayed quiet this morning. No calls. No questions. Just a new log-in to the anonymous forum around 10:21 a.m.

She was probably curious. Still aching. Still thinking about what she’d confessed.

I hated sleeping so far away from her last night, with Mobile Bay stretching out between us, and I was itching to see her again. So, I activated her webcam and mic with a few keystrokes.

Her video feed blinked onto my screen, lips pursed in concentration, fingers curled over the keyboard.

A long pause. I dragged the video feed to the right-hand monitor of my triple-screen setup at my work desk, dragged the live feed from the keystroke logger on her laptop to my left-hand screen, and kept the anonymous forum open on my center monitor.

After a couple of minutes, she finally typed out a reply to me in her DMs.

GraveyardGirl93

I can’t fucking believe I said all that last night.

I smiled as the message hit the system.

There it was: guilt, shame, and want tangled up in fear.

Perfect.

StrayDog777

It’s okay to want things. Especially the ones you’re afraid to say out loud.

I opened my external camera feed, and dragged it over to my right-hand screen, too, so I had multiple views of her running on the screen at once.

Sunlight poured through her bedroom window, caressing her bare legs. She sat cross-legged on her bed, skin still flushed. Hair messy. Fingers trembling as she scrubbed them over her face as she worked up the nerve to type out her reply.

She was still thinking about being chased. And I was still chasing her.

Her reply came slower this time. She stared at the screen for a long moment before she started typing.

GraveyardGirl93

It’s not okay. I sounded insane. Like some desperate feral little thing that wants to be hunted like an animal. That’s not normal.

I laughed out loud.

Feral little thing.

She had no idea what that did to me.

But I stayed in character as I typed out my reply, my fingers moving over the keys with deliberate calm.

StrayDog777

Wanting to surrender control doesn’t make you broken. It just means you crave intensity. Intimacy. Something that feels more real than anything you’ve ever experienced before.

She exhaled softly. I heard it through her mic, watched the way her shoulders dipped like some tension had slipped out of her spine. But she wasn’t done spiraling yet.

GraveyardGirl93

What if it’s not normal to want someone to overpower you? To chase you, pin you, use you until you’re too far gone to fight back?